A blog which details the psychological warfare, social interactions, observations and much more that occur inside a 17 strong studio creating our first point and click game.
That - as well as self-reflection, philosophising and theorising.

Sunday, 25 March 2007

Week 4 - The Birth of a Story + Class to Team

Straight into it this lesson. Bam! Bam! Bam!As I nominated myself as a story-writer I was to to prove myself to the class and Jason by reading one of my pieces of work. I felt strange in class that day, I was self-conscious and quite introspective [I'm not usually worried about such things] - so when I read out my piece "Indescent" I stuttered and blushed and spoke far to quickly. However regained some composure towards the end. To my surprise I wasn't completely rejected, so this was another example of fear of rejection.

I am a competitive person by nature, so I often find myself being concerned about whether my work is better [in my head anyway] than the other person's. I think this boils down to my primary school experience... I would always seek the praise of the teacher [I was always the most successful student in the class up until 3rd form anyway], and I would feel a huge sense of self worth when the teacher congratulated me on something or showed my work off to the other students. Which of course every student strives for, however it was a strange motivation... which is probably why I stopped pushing myself when I finished high school, in my gap year. So now my motivation is to challenge my own intellect, skills and creativity. Although in this assignment I feel I need to prove myself to the class - they rely on me [and the rest of the team] placing all the effort I can into this game - which will pay off in the end, with a fantastic game [I must prove myself to the AGS community also] and a group grade dripping with dressing.

Anyway onto what happened in this class:-Some have expressed our concerns for those among us (of whom are shy or lacking in communication skills) that may not be happy with the storyline. I think this has a lot to with confidence and acceptance. I think we may be in dire need of some serious trust building. Having not only confidence in ones own skills - but in the skills of others. Knowing that when I ask a teammate to research something or design something or print something - that the request will be acknowledged and completed; also having confidence in that person to do it well. Luckily most of this won't be my concern as it will be Jesse in most cases [who has been 'erected' to project manager] that will be keeping us on track! I have faith [and this seems to be a shared opinion with the rest of the class] that he will carry out this role with success - being in the same class as Jesse last year gave me many indications that he was a motivated and trustworthy person with great time-management skills [... something I can learn from him!! I've been a dreamer throughout my life and this has meant spending a lot more time thinking and reworking ideas in my head than actually applying these processes to paper, resulting in all of last years' assignments being handed in at literally the last moment!!!]

This team building is wonderful really. I can feel the beginnings of a studio coming into play. The cogs are creaking into motion... now to apply grease and turn the crank...

In the second half of this class we developed the bare-bones of a story into an acceptable storyline. I'm on the story team but I didn't feel like I really contributed and spoke out a lot during this discussion - instead I put my listening skills into play... of which need as much practice as possible, being that I am an outspoken person and often times neglect to listen, let alone consider the other person's response - because during their speech time I am already formulating another idea or reasoning to bombard the other party with.

So to me this lesson was one of restraint and respect... of diluting my over-stimulated ego and truly listening to what other's have to say. A tough task for an introverted only child of one parent, who's thoughts were never rejected or challenged by siblings or a cocky father, but encouraged.

So instead of cracking my ego open in mummy's warm womb - I have fertilized it in hope that my ego will then hatch allowing it to be exposed to other ego's and roosters. I think it's about to crack... someone get the flying pan.